Tonic for the Soul: URF Tone’s Hip-hop

These days, every time I run across a hip-hop track that’s not bursting with expletives or explicit language, I feel like leading a cheer. It’s not even that I’m particularly conservative… after all, ‘Whisper’ by the Yin Yang Twins and ‘Candy Shop’ by 50 Cent count among some of my all-time favorites! Still, there are times when you wish you could have a squeaky-clean playlist that you could enjoy in mixed company. My wish was granted recently, when I stumbled upon this track, ‘Get Busy’ by URF Tone… the “URF” being short for “United Republic of Funk”, though I didn’t know that then.

Right off, I was hooked by the B-boy style beat that had me movin’ and shakin’ as I went about my day. In fact, the song’s dash and effervescent sound put me in mind of an all-time hot fav, ‘It Takes Two’ by MC Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock. I checked out another track, ‘Rock Steady’, which turned out to be a real banger that had my head nodding in time to the smooth rap, reminiscent of Rakim’s ‘When I B On Tha Mic’. Next was something that blew me away, a track called ‘Mi Amor’; its minimalist score and syncopated beat served as the perfect backdrop to the real romance of the lyrics… 

As I think back on our journey, how you was so sure of me 

As my whole world turned bleak, I’m talkin’ about jobless and broke, 

And I certainly wasn’t fly enough to justify an absolute dime, 

But absurdly, you loved a version of me that, on paper was a long way from…

A real love-song of the kind that’s so hard to find in the modern age.

Other tracks that I found groovy included ‘Energy’, with its 80’s style 808 rhythm and ‘Something 4 Ya’ whose out-of-this-world rap references gelled surprisingly well with its mellow, cello-guitar-synth fusion track. ‘Feel is Real’ was another outstanding song, memorable as much for its real-dope rap as for its cool, aqua-style background score, the perfect track to put on loop while driving around town.

Now obviously, I wanted to get to know more about URF Tone, so I looked up the duo on Insta and set up a chat with MC Ila (birth name Ila Parvaz) and The World Famous N.I.C (aka Nicholas Demps) which, while it was entertaining, also offered up plenty of food for thought. I thought I’d share some bits and pieces of the chat with our readers, who, if they’ve checked out URF Tone’s music by now, are bound to be a bit curious about the artists behind it.

First off, I wanted to know what inspired them to take on the challenge of keeping their music so clean. The answer had the power to inspire me, so I’m sharing it here: Their music was about affirming simple goodness, they told me, created from passion, with a childlike joy in the creative process. And it was a natural consequence, they pointed out, that their music stood in stark contrast with the kind of music that uses controversy and the shock factor, “desperately vying for attention” in a crowded landscape. As a music lover, this point resonated deeply with me.

When asked what they identified as their musical inspiration, Ila and N.I.C were unambiguous—the golden era of hip-hop, which was, for them, the late 80’s and early 90’s, was the period that they draw upon the most in their music-making. Their music, though, is not dated, they clarify, and I have to agree. Their description of their songs as creating, “a nostalgic feeling, but with a contemporary twist” is something I find myself agreeing with.

Given that these guys are all about authenticity, not only in their music, but also in being true to their values, I’m interested to hear how they plan to build greater visibility for their music. They share how, since the release of their first single, ‘Feel is Real’ in mid 2021, their popularity has been climbing steadily, not just through Spotify streams, but also YouTube viewership and subscriptions… I’m not really surprised. Holding down full-time jobs as they do, and being committed husbands, they confess, means that they must scale their musical productivity – and outreach – accordingly. Their mission is simple: “We hope to expand our reach as much as possible, and touch whoever may benefit from what we have to offer.”

There’s definitely no dearth of takers for URF Tone’s awesome music that’s, “just what the doc recommended”. So keep it coming, guys. And for those of you who’d like to tune into Ila and N.I.C’s weekly YouTube videocasts, there’s ‘URF Tone Tuesday’.